


A Domestic Date

by vonhosselfratt



Category: Will & Grace
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Kinda Fluffy, kinda dumb, tbh its about time i wrote a grace/karen fic what the hell took me so long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 15:33:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14937002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vonhosselfratt/pseuds/vonhosselfratt
Summary: Grace drags her wife to IKEA to play house. Karen indulges her (just this once.)





	A Domestic Date

“Don’t you just love furniture stores?” Grace says breezily, gazing around the IKEA as she walks alongside Karen. “All that smell of different kinds of fabric, and wood…”

Karen harrumphs a little, dragging her feet like a petulant child. “Honey, if you wanted to salivate over the smell of wood, you should have come here with Wilma, not me,” she says irritably. She stomps her foot. “How long do we have to be here, anyway?”

She looks distastefully at her surroundings, as if she was deathly allergic to department stores.

“Karen -” Grace sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We’re getting furniture for _our_ home. Can’t you at least get a little excited?” She goes to run a languid finger over a nearby throw cushion. “Oh, this is nice…”

“No beige,” Karen cuts in harshly, slapping her hand away. “We’re shopping for _us_ , not one of your constipated clients that run a dental office in The Bronx.”

“Ooh, good call,” Grace says. She snakes her hand to hold Karen’s as they walk, hoping to soothe her a little.

“I don’t understand why we have to redecorate the manse,” Karen continues. “Don’t you like our house, honey?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Grace says. “I just want to...modernize it a little.”  There’s also the fact that much of that furniture belonged to Stanley, and even _smelled_ like him, and it was beginning to bug Grace in ways she hadn’t expected. Sure, she wasn’t _jealous_ of the man - that would be ridiculous - but it seemed that Karen was still holding onto her ex-husband in ways that made Grace a little...

Okay, fine, _jealous_.

“Trust me, sweetie, I’m an interior designer,” she says instead, smiling down at her.

Karen softens a little. “Oh, well, alright, if it makes you happy. But does it have to be here? If I wanted hard Swedish furniture to sit on, I’d just go to my masseuse, Bjorn.”

“Karen…” Grace hisses. “You know I don’t like it when you joke about screwing your staff.”

“Well, honey, _I_ don’t object to your weird mating rituals with Wilma, like your little game night or those Barney’s sales you go to.”

“I feel like it’s really important for you to know that Will and I don’t have sex,” Grace grimaces.

A store employee notices them and walks up to them with a big, artificial smile.

“Hello, ladies. Is there anything I can help you with today?” she says.

“Oh, no thank you. I’m an interior designer,” Grace smiles back.

“Oh. Wow. You almost went two minutes without mentioning it,” Karen asides. Grace nudges her.

“So, you two are roommates?” the woman says.

Karen looks up, offended. “Excuse you, lady,” she says harshly, swaggering forward to square up with her. “I’ll have you know that Grace is not my _roommate_.”

Grace smiles, blushing a little.

“She’s my bitch, and I won’t have anyone thinking otherwise.”

Grace blinks. “Uh...I’m her _wife_ ,” she corrects.

“Yeah, honey, that’s what I said,” Karen says sweetly. She turns back to the woman angrily. “Besides, we don’t need style advice from someone who wears blue stripes on mustard-yellow fabric.”

“ _It’s the store uniform_ ,” Grace hisses.

“I’ll leave you two to browse, then,” the woman says, says awkwardly, shuffling off in the other direction.

“Of all the nerve. Imagine thinking we’re roommates,” Karen snarls when she’s out of earshot.  

“Maybe if you started introducing me differently,” Grace says, snatching her hand back and continuing to walk, more stiffly this time. “Maybe like, oh, I don’t know, _this is Grace Adler, the love of my life, or, Grace Adler, my enchanting better half…_ ”

“Nu-uh. Not happening.” Karen cuts her off.

“Or at least _some_ kind of public indication that you’re in love with me,” Grace says.

“Like this?” Karen says innocently, before swatting her on the ass.

“Karen!” Grace snaps, wrenching her hand away. “God, you’re like a horny teenage boy.”

Karen cackles as her wife narrows her eyes at her, scowling.

“Oh, Grace. You know _I love you_ ,” Karen says in a sing-song voice, and pouts dramatically. She snakes her hand back into Grace’s and squeezes it.

Grace relents a little, smiling from the corner of her mouth.

“Promise to behave?” she says.

“Sure, honey.”

* * *

“ _Oh, god. This bed is so soft_ ,” Grace sighs, throwing herself back onto a duvet, stretching herself out. “Come on, Karen, _feel_.”

Karen squints at her judgmentally. “Really? You want the one with the cartoon donut printed bedspread? Come on, it’s bad enough that I have to put up with your Hello Kitty pajamas.”

“Give it a chance. Come on.” She pats the bed and Karen begrudgingly follows suit, sinking down on her back next to Grace. _“Huh? Huh_?” Grace goads, nudging her.

“It’s not as soft as _our_ bed,” Karen comments, giving it an experimental bounce.

“That’s because _our_ bed has a Stanley Walker-sized crater in it,” Grace bites back. “Come on, we need something new. For just us.”

Karen raises one eyebrow and sits up on her elbows, smirking at Grace.

“Honey, are you jealous of my ex-husband?”

Grace scoffs. “ _No_!” she barks.

Karen tilts her head and gives her a dubious look. Grace starts to protest, but deflates, sighing.

“It’s just...everything in that house belongs to him,” she complains. “Every jumbo-sized piece of furniture, every mechanical stairlift...just this morning I found a stick of beef jerky hidden in our pillowcase.”

“Grace,” Karen says softly, shaking her head. “That was yours.”

“Oh,” Grace blushes. “Well, my point still stands.” She fidgets slightly. “I mean, even your _last name_ is his.”

Karen blinks. “I’m sorry, did you want me to change my last name to _Adler?_  Lord, you’re a narcissist.”

“God, no,” Grace says hurriedly. “You’ll always be Karen Walker. It’s your _brand_. I just wish that home felt a little more like...ours.”

Her wife softens visibly. She reaches across the play absentmindedly with Grace’s curls. “Well, I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Stanley. But you? You’ll always be my best girl.” She reaches to bop her on the nose playfully.

“Aww,” Grace coos, grinning stupidly.

“Alright, alright, let’s not get too sentimental. We’re still not buying this bed.”

“Fine,” Grace relents.

“So, are we gonna have sex on this thing, or not?” Karen says bluntly.

Grace’s eyes widen. “Karen!”

“What? You make me promise to behave and then you bring me into a room full of mattresses? I’m getting some mixed signals here, honey.”

“Karen, we’re not having sex in an _IKEA…_ ”

“Huh. So it was good enough for you with Leon in a public airplane bathroom with Paula Abdul waitin’ outside, but this isn’t? Sure, way to hurt a girl’s feelings,” Karen huffs obstinately, folding her arms.

“There’s a family _right there_ ,” Grace says, motioning towards a group of people browsing nearby. A young boy is staring at Grace and Karen, transfixed.

Karen stares back menacingly. “What’s the matter, muffin-top? Haven’t you ever seen a hot lezzie couple chilling on a donut-print bedspread before? Grow up,” she snarls.

The boy runs off in the opposite direction.

Grace laughs. “My hero,” she says.

She leans across and gives Karen a quick kiss. “Thanks for coming here with me," she whispers.

Karen smiles. “That’s okay, Gracie. It’s been fun, indulging your strange little suburban, lower middle-class fantasy. But we’re not actually going to _buy_ any of this stuff, are we?” she whines.

“I guess not,” Grace says. “Maybe I just wanted to feel like a normal couple.”

“We’re not normal. We’re rich,” Karen says pointedly.

“ _You’re_ rich.” Grace corrects. “I grew up saving for my college education with pennies in a jar.”

“So? What does that matter? We’re married. What’s mine is yours.”

Grace shakes her head. “You made me sign a pre-nup.”

“Well of course I did, honey. I’m not an _idiot_.”

Grace stifles a laugh. “You know what? I’m going to design the manse myself. Head to toe. I’m thinking…” She ponders for a moment. “ _Art deco_ meets _classic transitional_ meets _shabby chic_.”

“Cut the shabby, and I’m on board.” Karen says.

“Deal.”

She holds out her hand, and her wife shakes it.

“Are we ready to go now?” Karen sighs.

“Just _one_ more thing,” Grace says as the women stand up and lock hands once again. “I saw a mini-fridge near the checkout I’m dying to get for our bedroom.”

“Aw, Gracie,” Karen coos, taking Grace’s hand and bringing it to her mouth to give it a chaste peck. “It’s sweet to know you’re still thinking of me.”

“...Sure,” Grace replies, shaking thoughts of beef jerky from her mind. “I’m always thinking of you, babe.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> believe it or not, there is an alternate version of this fic where grace and karen do in fact hook up in an IKEA. But I decided to publish the squeaky clean version instead, 'cause I'm a lady, assface.


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